: : and what, perchance doth the ancient tongue intend to convey by said remark?

: It intends to convey annoyance that Bartlett's wasn't more explicit.

Socrates did not write down his thoughts. He preferred to question/examine/"vet"
(that lovely new buzz word)
fellow citizens endlessly about their beliefs in the Athenian marketplace.
(Were Socrates around today, I think he would have been considered to be a troll.)
Plato was a member of his coterie and wrote down his teacher's philosophy after Socrates was executed.
(Incidentally, Plato's star pupil was Aristotle, who tutored Alexander the Great.)

To keep a classic work such as The Apology
(which is NOT an apology as we use the term today)
from becoming dull mumbo-jumbo suitable for insominacs, it must be periodically refreshed. One of the best reinterpretations I've read was written by
Wayne Paquette (aka granpawayne), a philosophy instructor at
John Abbott College, a junior college
in Québec, Canada

http://www.granpawayne.com/courses/EXAMLIFE.HTM

His rephrasing of "An Unexamined Life is not worth living" makes it much more understandable for today's audience. If people are not permitted to question/examine/vet beliefs, then life is unbearable.